3 Types of Jobseekers

It's a cold foggy Sunday morning in Gurgaon, as I write this to you. I've got a cup of hot tea by the study table and the heater is warming up the room. Life is good :)

In my experience in coaching hundreds of job seekers, I've seen that there are three types of job seekers in terms of their mindset:

Sidewalkers (the bottom 10%): These job seekers blame their lack of experience, the economy, their education, their boss, their colleagues, their parents - heck even the weather for not being able to find a new job.

In their heads, they are perfect - but the world is not, and the world owes them a new job. So they crib, complain, bicker and moan to everybody who is willing to lend a sympathetic ear about how tough their life is.

But they will not get off their backside to find that job.

Sidewalkers are natural born losers.

Slowlaners (the middle 80%): These job seekers are aware that the need to find a new job rests with them. They take partial responsibility and put in the bare minimum effort to find a new job.

But they 'lease' out the main effort and responsibility of finding a good job to a job portal and recruiter, and expect them to do all the hard work to help them find a new job. Slowlaners are well-meaning, but misguided and make up the bulk of job seekers.

Slowlaners take ages to find a new job - because they depend almost entirely on other people's kindness and self-interest in helping them.

Chances are high you're a slowlaner.

Fastlaners (the top 10%): These people take full (100%) responsibility of their professional destiny. They leave nothing to chance and always get the best jobs while others are left fighting for scraps.

Fastlaners have certain inherent skills - they invest in learning, they seek out mentors, they take massive and quick action, they learn from their mistakes quickly. And most of all they don't blame anybody for their current personal and professional status.

Fastlaners have 'skin in the game' and are aware that there is always a price to pay to gain anything meaningful. That price is usually hard work and self-responsibility.

So pause reading here for a moment and ask yourself this question: exactly which one of the groups do you fall into? And if you aren't a fastlaner yet - how do you become one? What skills and mental attitude do you need, to accelerate down the highway of life?

Bye for now. Have a relaxed last few days to the year-end. Make this a time for reflection on where your career and life is heading.

Vikram Anand | Career Coach

www.vikramanand.com

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